North Korea Reddit AMA

Man of Honour
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Hey all,

I guess this might be a little too self promo but I figured I'd post it as I know there's quite a few people on here who follow my travel blog and the like. I'm currently about to do an AMA on Reddit on the topic that I've now arranged tours to North Korea for close to 1,000 people for Lupine Travel who I work for. If you fancy asking any questions about NK feel free to join at the link :)...

https://www.reddit.com/r/travel/comments/agynjg/i_have_arranged_tours_to_north_korea_for_nearly/
 
Soldato
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Not exactly the most impartial AMA is it. Your definitions of 'grey areas' are amusing.
At the end of the day you work for a business that engages in sending people to very dangerous places in the world rife with corruption and abuse of any global humanitarian laws. How many people are suffering in NK due to that regime? Millions and yet you have become everything their propaganda machine wants when you say **** like 'oh but people in the capital are fine'
You can sugar coat it as much as you want but ultimately thats what it is.
 
Soldato
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Not exactly the most impartial AMA is it. Your definitions of 'grey areas' are amusing.
At the end of the day you work for a business that engages in sending people to very dangerous places in the world rife with corruption and abuse of any global humanitarian laws. How many people are suffering in NK due to that regime? Millions and yet you have become everything their propaganda machine wants when you say **** like 'oh but people in the capital are fine'
You can sugar coat it as much as you want but ultimately thats what it is.

Absolutley, I think Christopher Hitchens sumes it up pretty well in this short paragraph, his video about his visit to NK is worth a watch.

"....There is no private life for a North Korean. There isn't a moment when you are not either on parade or when you're not on parade, told to stay indoors. You're not wanted, stay at home you're under curfew. Lights are out in Pyongyang and that's the capital city, at 8.30. You can't go out after dark, stay in. There's nothing to watch, there's nothing to see. All the television programs, when it's working, are all about the Dear Leader, as are all operas, all films, all concert performances and all public lectures. There's nothing else to talk about. The life of the human being, this is what I failed to convey in my article, is completely pointless."
 
Man of Honour
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Me and a friend have been wanting to book a Chernobyl your for years and might do it this year!

Do you know when more dates will be released?

For the two days tours? We only run a couple a year, but if you've got 4 people or so a private trip becomes a similar price. If you just want a day tour these run every single day.

Wow. This is fascinating. I have only one question currently - "is it expensive?" :)

NK? 2 night tours start at £399 and the 4 night trip which is the most popular is £799 from Beijing or £719 from the border. The sky is the limit though as we've had people stay as long as a month on private trips.
 
Man of Honour
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Not exactly the most impartial AMA is it. Your definitions of 'grey areas' are amusing.
At the end of the day you work for a business that engages in sending people to very dangerous places in the world rife with corruption and abuse of any global humanitarian laws. How many people are suffering in NK due to that regime? Millions and yet you have become everything their propaganda machine wants when you say **** like 'oh but people in the capital are fine'
You can sugar coat it as much as you want but ultimately thats what it is.

Well of course it's not going to be impartial, it's pretty obvious that I'm going to have an opinion on this?

We work extremely hard to make trips as safe as possible, can you detail which parts of trips are "very dangerous"? Some of the countries have an image of being high risk destinations but there's stable regions in all of them that with proper due diligence and security measures can be visited. For places like Baghdad, Afghanistan and Libya the clients joining these trips know what they are joining on to, most will have visited 150+ countries before joining such a trip.

I don't recall saying people in the capital are fine? The standard of living in Pyongyang is certainly better than the countryside, but the people are still under a lot of oppression in the city and freedom of movement is heavily restricted.

I don't believe I've sugar coated it, I've tried to give honest answers based on my 7 years of experience in the country.
 
Soldato
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For the two days tours? We only run a couple a year, but if you've got 4 people or so a private trip becomes a similar price. If you just want a day tour these run every single day.



NK? 2 night tours start at £399 and the 4 night trip which is the most popular is £799 from Beijing or £719 from the border. The sky is the limit though as we've had people stay as long as a month on private trips.

That's pretty good. So get to Beijing, holiday there, and then £400 for a two day trip to NK. Sounds quite good.

Are you still doing trips to Libya? It's on your site but not on the application form. I'm curious what you'd see there. Of course that's probably a separate person to you.
 
Man of Honour
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That's pretty good. So get to Beijing, holiday there, and then £400 for a two day trip to NK. Sounds quite good.

Are you still doing trips to Libya? It's on your site but not on the application form. I'm curious what you'd see there. Of course that's probably a separate person to you.

You'd need a couple nights on the trains as well for £80 or return flights to NK but yeah it's possible.

We do a trip to Libya each month, dates are on request only as we don't them searchable online. 3 nights, 2 full days. 1 day in Tripoli and 1 in Leptis Magna. Group of 3 with no tour leader.
 
Man of Honour
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The two day tour worth it over the single dayer? Two of us at the moment but I’m sure we could wrangle two more.

Also, any OcUK discount? :p

It's a different type of tour. I've done the 2 dayer and the 1 dayer a couple of times. On the 2 day trip you get more like 3 times the time and staying in the hotel in the zone is a bit of fun. Also max. group size is 12 on the 2 dayer whereas it can be much larger on a single day trip.

If you're into photography etc. that's a very common reason to do the 2 day trip, you get more time in each area. And a slightly higher chance of going inside the buildings, although this is officially forbidden.
 
Man of Honour
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Reading the first answer "It's not that controlled" - really? Are we being fed a pack of lies by the media here and people who have escaped?

I can assure you I don't work for the Korean media :D I live in Tooting.

The questions was is it controlled in regards to what tourists can see, which compared to what most people believe, it is not. It's more controlled then say a visit to Rome though by a country mile.
 
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